Inquiry Project (Full Study)
Description of Study
After spending a few weeks at Hopewell Central High school observing and starting to take responsibility for classes, I began to learn a lot about my students and their attitudes towards math and studying. Too often, I would overhear students saying "I do not study for math" or that "you really can’t study for math". The problem I see in my classes, especially the Functions, Statistics, and Trigonometry classes, is that students do not know how to study for math and fully prepare themselves for an assessment. As a result, there are several students who do not perform well on quizzes and tests. I decided to pick this topic for my inquiry project because I believe that knowing how to study for math will help students better prepare for an assessment and increase their overall understanding of the material, as well as improve their grades.
My strategy for this inquiry project is to develop different types of study guides to give to my students before an assessment, specifically a quiz or test. Not only will I look at their overall grades, but I will also take into account written or oral feedback from students about the study guides. Most importantly, I will ask students to explain how the study guide played a role in their preparation for the assessment. For some of the study guides, I will collect them from the students and evaluate their responses to the questions. Also, this will allow me to compare their answers on the study guide to corresponding questions and answers on the quiz or test.
I have several learning goals which I hope to meet throughout this 4-week study. I hope to discover which types of study guides are most beneficial for students in their preparation for the assessment. I also plan on having the first study guide be very structured and straight forward and then gradually put more responsibility on the students by having them help complete the study guide (through answering questions and/or completing math problems). I hope that students learn by the end of this project the types of things they should pick out from a chapter or unit to study that will help them do well on an assessment, so that in the future they are not so dependent on teacher-made study guides. On a personal level, I hope that this project helps me to become more reflective about my teaching methods so that I can become a more effective teacher. In addition, I hope to have a positive impact on my students; I would love to see a general improvement in student understanding of the material as well as higher grades on quizzes and tests.
After contemplating and planning for this project, I realized that there may be a few obstacles that could possibly impact the study. First of all, students may be absent from class, which would effect their learning of the material. In order to minimize this problem from affecting my study, I chose 3 students to observe for this project. Out of the three students that I chose, one of them was frequently absent because of sports, so that student is not mentioned in this study. Another obstacle is that students may choose not to use the study guides I have created and complete them, and therefore, it would be difficult to analyze their effectiveness. However, the students that I am working with seem to take an active role in their performance on quizzes and tests, and I am confident that, in general, most students will take advantage of the provided study guides.
For this project, I decided to pick two students from one of my Functions, Statistics, and Trigonometry classes. These two students are in the same class and are both juniors at Hopewell. I chose these students because they are both average students and I believe that they both have the potential to do better. The first student I chose is named "Oscar". He sits towards the front of the classroom and is generally on task. He frequently raises his hand to answer questions and does not get embarrassed if he has an incorrect answer. "Oscar" seems to have a lot of friends in the classroom, and he is well-liked by many of the students. He has been absent a few times from class, however, he has made an effort afterwards to come and see me to find out what he had missed. A few times, "Oscar" has come during his study hall for additional help. "Oscar" has received high C’s for his last two marking period grades.
The second student I chose is "Evan". He also sits towards the front of the classroom. Unlike "Oscar", "Evan" is really quiet and shy in class. He never raises his hand to answer a question nor volunteers to put answers on the board. I have called on him a few times and he does answer my questions, but is only correct about half of the time. In addition, "Evan" is always on task and generally prefers to work alone when given the option of working with a partner on an assignment. He generally earns C’s or low B’s on assignments, quizzes, and tests.
I thought that these two students would be the best choices for my inquiry project. I wanted to choose two average students with the desire to do better. I can tell that both of these students care about understanding the material as well as their grades. I thought it would also be interesting to pick students with two different personalities: one who is outgoing and the other more reserved.
Baseline Assessment / Student Work